The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Barney Frank’s Self-Created Problem

Posted on | October 13, 2010 | 6 Comments

BOSTON — Scapegoating other people for your problems is a psychological defense mechanism that allows the narcissist to resolve his cognitive dissonance, to wit: “I think I’m wonderful, but not everyone seems to share this perception and I need to distract them (and myself) from evidence that I’m not as wonderful as I’d like everyone to think I am. Therefore, someone else must be blamed for my errors, and anyone who calls attention to my flaws must be ignored or shouted down.”

Such is the psychodrama being played out in the 4th Congressional District. My latest article at The American Spectator:

Debbie still remembers the moment more than a year ago when she decided to devote herself to defeating Barney Frank.
“The way he talked to his constituents, it just turned my stomach,” Debbie said, talking about an August 2009 town-hall event in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, attended by some 500 citizens who overwhelmingly opposed the health-care bill that was then working its way through Congress. “I said to my husband, ‘I don’t care who’s running against him, I’ll work for them — and I’ll work my heart out.'”
True to her vow, Debbie was working her heart out Tuesday afternoon at a phone bank in the Norton, Massachusetts office of the Republican challenger who is giving the 14-term incumbent the biggest fight of his career.
Sean Bielat has first-hand knowledge of Barney Frank’s stomach-turning arrogance. Bielat debated Frank three times in the past two days, although “debate” is perhaps not the correct word. Frank does not debate, he lectures, and no matter what outrageous claims he makes, his opponent cannot be permitted to object.
“Mr. Bielat, please stop interrupting me,” Frank said during a Monday debate on Boston’s WRKO radio, after the Republican had objected to one of Frank’s numerous distortions. Before the debate was over, as Jonathan Strong of the Daily Caller noted, Frank complained eight time about being interrupted. It was as if Frank thought he was back at Harvard — where he taught undergraduate course in the 1960s — and his GOP opponent was an impertinent sophomore.
Bielat yesterday summed up Frank’s attitude: “‘Don’t talk. I’m talking. I’m the congressman. You’re here to listen to me.’ That’s the way he’s approached his constituents. That’s the way he’s approaching this race. And that’s the way he was approaching me [Monday].” . . .

Please read the whole thing. Barney Frank perceives, correctly, that he has enemies. What he cannot admit — certainly not in public, and perhaps not even to himself — is that these are enemies of his own making.

Barney made his own choices, including the choice he made when he “took a free private jet to the Virgin Islands courtesy of a Maine congresswoman’s billionaire fiance — whose company received a $200 million federal bailout.” 

Now that he is being called to account for those choices, he is seeking to externalize blame, portraying himself as the victim of his enemies. It won’t wor

SEAN BIELAT for U.S. CONGRESS

Category: American Spectator, Congress, Election, Massachusetts, Sean Bielat

Comments

Comments are closed.